A Price to be Paid
by Lesatho
Summary: Nothing comes without a price, certainly not a Revolution. Anders realizes too late that real heroes understand this price better than most. Post-Game. One Shot.


_The scars of your love remind me of us,  
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all,  
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless,  
I can't help feeling,  
We could have had it all._

-Adele. "Rolling in the Deep."

* * *

Anders is running and Kirkwall is falling behind him.

As much in the literal sense as the figurative one it would seem, thick black clouds rising into the sky as the entire city shudders in the throes of what he's done. Even after a near-decade of staying in one place, he's almost amazed at how fast he takes to running once more, now that there are no more walls and a reason to flee. It's a different kind of escape than from the Circle or from Vigil's Keep and his legs are pumping, thin body hurtling effortlessly through the wilds as Sundermount begins to swallow the sight of Kirkwall on the horizon. Only its not _him_ running now, not really. Justice is in control, every ounce of focus going into keeping them moving because Anders might decide to try and fight him for control again. In the distance he can see bodies streaming away from the city and knows at least peripherally that the rest of their group had made it out. Almost.

He badly wants to stop. To go back. But Justice won't let him, now that they're another step closer to freedom and liberation and the plight and...

_Sweet Maker. Please. _Hawke is still in Kirkwall.

-o-

Meredith had been downed, the Templars had peeled back in pure and utter shock and some unspoken agreement to Knight-Captain Cullen's slow, thoughtful retreat and they were all very much focused on getting out alive. They actually stood a chance to do just that; escape into the confusion and panic and leave Kirkwall, drop off the face of Thedas and wait for things to calm. And he and Hawke could continue onward toward the next fight, the next rush of freedom, the next step outlined to bring the Chantry and the Circles to a close. Hawke; brave and beautiful and... suddenly not beside him anymore. But the others were already lunging ahead toward freedom; certain in the idea that they would all make it out.

Anders had come to a stumbling halt, head whipping around only to find her standing calm and serene in the mouth of the Gallows, the Templars behind her beginning to stir out of their inaction as time ticked persistently by and the dark smoke began to blot out the sun. At his desperate shouts, she still didn't move; looking at him with something in her expression that was equal parts love and regret and – Maker! Why didn't she keep running?

She saw him coming, robes curled about his legs as he turned, intent on coming back to get her even as Justice snapped at his control, sharp nips of discomfort that ran along his spine like needles; the spirit's encouragement to turn and run, leave Kirkwall behind. And he would. He could. But not without her.

Her hands moved as if underwater, a slow and purposeful gesture that brought her fingers arcing toward him, away, upward until she was nearly gesturing to the sky; a goddess of war and sorrow with the short chop of black hair flicking in the smoke streaming air. Lightning arced and leaped from her fingers to strike high against the Gallows gate, the metal twisted and screamed as the gate came crashing downward to strike into the ground with all the force and finality of a blow from the Maker above. When the dust had cleared he found himself looking at her in disbelief through thick, caged steel and no way to move it. Already painfully tight, his heart gave a hard squeeze as his hands came up to grip the iron like a drowning man.

"Hawke-!"

Hands at her sides once more and her Champion armor dulled by dust and soot, she didn't seem able to look him in the eyes, as if she carried the burden of his actions across her shoulders like some private shame. It struck him like a bolt, searing through him and leaving the sharp taste of loss and failure on his tongue. "I love you Anders, you know that. I could never have killed you." Silence had stretched for a moment and he willed her not to say the words that rest at the tip of her tongue, even if her actions had already made her decision abundantly, painfully clear. "But I won't come with you." And its not right. Her fingers lifted briefly, fluttered at her lips, her throat, restlessly looking for a place to land even as she kept avoiding his eyes.

He loved her eyes... that blunt honesty and the bone deep affection that had grown there, reflected at first in each stolen glance they'd shared, uncertainty and flirtation mingling in reckless compulsion; apostates sharing the forbidden. And then the surprising, shocking, magnetic passion that had knocked him nearly out of his boots. Gently after that was the love, falling into place like the lost pieces of a puzzle. It flashed before him then; the kisses they'd shared, the long nights, the furtive glances and exchanged treasures and it's _not right _that suddenly she's unreachable. Hawke refused to look at him even as she began to turn away, shoulders falling in a final gesture of a surrender he was having trouble comprehending. "Hawke, _please._" There was more in that one please than in anything else he'd said to her recently and for a moment she stopped, turning to finally look him in the eyes. The world tumbled and he had trouble writing it off as an aftershock.

"You could have waited." Hawke's voice was soft, barely audible in the horrible noise of the city coming apart at the seams, screams and shouts tearing the air and for a moment the Veil seemed impossibly thin. Everything seemed impossibly thin, as her eyes caught him hard and fast and worst of all; _empty_. She'd already given up but that was impossible too because Hawke had never given up before, even as her family had been peeled away from her one by one. "All that work, all that effort to try and calm things... you destroyed what I built. What we built."

Breath dragged in between her lips, eyes drifting closed once more and her fingers twitched toward his hands upon the gate; a final, dying reflex. "There are some things more important than love." She sighed, the same words he'd hurled so thoughtlessly at her before in preparation of something bigger then the both of them. Bigger then Kirkwall and Thedas and... Anders knew he should understand this, but he can't. Not her. Not Hawke. Desperate, he reached through the sharp corners of the grating, fingers still too far to touch her. Regret was keen between the two of them and he thinks he's finally beginning to understand the look that had passed over her face when the Chantry had come apart at the seams, falling into the sky and crashing back to earth.

"There's nothing more important than love." He managed finally, hating the lie that he'd put between them. Love came second behind the driving need for justice – or vengeance – and now it's too late to change it. Eyes closed on a deep breath, she reached out to touch him; fingertips grazing against one another. It' wasn't enough. But the Templars were moving toward her and there was a hard, final wrench as Justice took control for their continued self-preservation because he couldn't even _think_ of what to do next.

But instead of breaking through the cage, Justice turned. And _ran_. Prisoner in his own head, Anders could only sit by as an anguished passenger as they fled. As _they_ fled and _she_ stayed. And Justice wouldn't even look back so he's cursed to have his last memory of her framed by iron bars. Templars moving slowly toward her in the background with swords sheathed, the curve of her cheek, her dark hair tangled in the wind as she turned away from him, lips parting to deliver words he honestly didn't want to hear. "There's justice."

-o-

And in the quiet agony that finally follows freedom, when Justice gives him back his own body and settles into the back of his mind once more, the apostate can't find the motivation to keep moving yet. They're deep into Sundermount and nothing can be done anymore. His carefully cultivated grapevine of mages and apostates had fled as well, before his attack and before Kirkwall fell to chaos and so he has nobody to tell him whats going to happen to the Champion. He knows it already and it doesn't help. Varric is the first he finds and the dwarf watches him with cold disbelief as he relates Hawke's decision. And with all his ability and imagination and endless lists of contact and information, there's not a thing Varric can tell him because it was Anders who took their lives and shattered them.

And in the end it's no comfort to know that Hawke stayed behind so justice could be meted out. Anders knows all too well that Justice and Vengeance go hand in hand.


End file.
